Water company bonuses rise this year despite sewage scandal 2024 on track to be record worst year for cancer care Cole-Hamilton reveals dozens of dentists retiring early in NHS exodus Only 7 days when CalMac sailings ran to timetable in 15 months Water company bonuses rise this year despite sewage scandal Shocking research finds water company executives paid themselves more in bonuses and pensions this year England and Wales water firms hand out £9.1million in bonuses to executives this year Thames Water, Severn Trent and South West Water worst offenders for paying executives even more in bonuses this year Liberal ...
"The UK now has the outline of a modern welfare state, but it is increasingly failing to fill in the gaps. Those gaps let far too many people fall through, and the consequences are both individual misery and collective decline." The state should be there when things go wrong in our lives, argues Andrew Sissons. The most senior former judges in England and Wales have called on the government to reverse the trend of imposing ever longer sentences, giving warning that radical solutions are needed to address the acute crisis in prisons. A briefing from the Howard League for Penal ...
The latest edition of my weekly political polling round-up, The Week in Polls, is out. As it says: It is to the credit of pollsters that many of them at the moment warn people off paying much attention to national voting intention figures about a hypothetical Westminster general election. After all, a cynic would expect people with a product to sell to talk up how important it is. It is also my impression that pollsters are keener to say 'don't pay too much attention to the most high profile thing we do' in the immediate aftermath of this election than ...
The Whickham North by-election will be held on Thursday (24th October 2024). Yesterday we held our 3rd action day in the ward since the vacancy was announced on 13th September. It was embarrassingly successful! All the leaflet bundles were collected before 11am and everything was delivered by 12.30pm. We had to stand down a few people who were planning to do the mop up operation today (Sunday)
It sounds beautiful, but as someone explains on Reddit: This is basically a pretty mean-spirited breakup song. It's like saying "You will never again know happiness or true love, because you lost me". Scott Russell on Paste, who described it as "one of the great indie-rock love songs of the 2000s," offers a more generous-minded reading: There's no malice in the song's eponymous oath - "No one is ever gonna love you more than I do" - but rather an overwhelming sense of certainty, despite all the attendant suffering. It's not the possibility of a new beginning that drives the ...
The Liberal Democrats, ran on a manifesto focusing on health and social care. However upon reading it on the day of its release I was disappointed – because it actually said very little about reforming welfare. To put this in blunt terms, approximately 24 percent of the United Kingdom's population is disabled – we had, in our manifesto, three insubstantial commitments on welfare reform for disabled people. That is not nearly good enough. As Rachel Reeves' first budget approaches, with new announcements on welfare "reforms" being made – including £3 billion in welfare cuts, it is a scary time to ...
Middle East Every geopolitical shift offers opportunities and dangers. The escalating war in the Middle East is no exception. At the moment the world is focused on the dangers. But the opportunities are there as the major players realise the need to step back from the brink and consider measures that were hitherto unthinkable in order to avoid a catastrophe nobody wants. The biggest opportunity could involve Iran's nuclear weapons programme. There is a strong body of opinion in the US and Israel that the best way to deal with Iran's nuclear weapons programme is to destroy it. The problem ...
Sun 20th
09:59
Daisy Cooper says no to fuel and NI rises and yes to more investment in public services
Daisy Cooper was on Sunday with Trevor Phillips on Sky News. As our new Treasury Spokesperson, she was asked about what she wanted to see in the Budget. But first, she was asked whether she accepted the Government's narrative about the £22 billion black hole in the public finances. She replied that there was no doubt that Conservatives left the economy in a mess. There may be an argument about the 22 billion number but what people want to know is if public services are going to get better. Are they going to get the health and social care they ...
In past years we featured, as part of the City Council's garden and allotment competition, the beautiful garden of Mr James Stirton of Hyndford Place. We were delighted when his family recently contacted us to say that "he (continues to put) all his effort into his garden. "He used to be a national champion and judged many allotment shows. He had two allotments that he has now had to give up. "His vegetable growing got him on TV. "He has his garden blooming like this into the autumn is a statement to his dedication." The very recent photos of Mr ...
The Irish Examiner reports on the view of the Lord Mayor of the City of London that the UK's departure from the European Union cost London's financial centre about 40,000 jobs, a far deeper impact from Brexit than previous estimates: Michael Mainelli said Dublin had gained most, attracting 10,000 positions, while cities such as Milan, Paris and Amsterdam had also benefited from jobs migrating from London after Britain voted to quit the EU trading bloc in 2016. "Brexit was a disaster," said Mainelli, the ceremonial head of London's City financial centre, which stretches over a square mile including the Bank ...
